No new beginnings this year. That’s not the way it works anymore. Nothing ever changes that way. Change has to come from the heart, from desire, from necessity, not from a date representing it.

She says everything is so simple, but really, when you’re helpless and lonely and tired…it’s different. When it’s three a.m. and you’re pulling your body out your bedroom window and walking somewhere, anywhere, because you feel a panic attack coming on and you need to get out, to stretch and breathe…it’s then that you truly begin to understand the true meaning of life's complexity and intricateness.

Yesterday, she woke up with a sick feeling in her chest, and this morning it was there again. She knows it's going to be that way for a while. Today, it hurt not to see herself up as his number one, because for once she realize that she’s really not, she never really was and she never really could be.

She cried for a while, and felt pathetic, as she realized he just doesn't need her in his life, and that she can't keep obsessing over him this way. And so, she decides to try to let go. Really try.

Things, for once, are going well for her...and there I am dragging her down. The biggest problem she's having is whether or not he's going to be coming up this weekend instead of next. My problem is, I don't even have d----- anymore, and I'll probably never see him again.

I'm being left with no other choice. I'm going to drown myself in other thoughts and other things so as to keep my thoughts off of him, and keep myself from wondering how things are, if he's falling in love with anyone,. A girl just can't live this way forever.

"Isn’t it sad, the way we don’t usually see how beautiful something is, until it’s dead?"

Not this time, darling. Not this time. I knew of this beauty from the very beginning. He’s the one that lied and tried to demean it. The funny thing is, here we are again, almost three years later and I still don’t hold anything against him.

Tell me, what allows me to be happy for him, and wish him well, when he’s lied and hurt me so much?

What’s sad is how little energy I have left to even try to make this right.

I miss home. I’m not talking about my childhood home, either, that dead (and dying) city where my mother’s house is and where I spent the first years of my life. No. I miss that feeling I felt when I am in his arms, or holding his hand in my sleep, or when he sits in the same chair as me and I can feel his body against my back.

That’s what I miss. I’ve tried to wash my hands of all of that, but tell me, just how do you disown the only place you ever felt you belonged?

What do you write about, when you feel so terribly worthless and when every possible sentence you can think of stringing together seems dull and lifeless? What do you do when you’re an artist with a deadline and a free spirit both struggling to overpower the other?

The artist always wants freedom – the world always expects submission. Meanwhile the art – this powerful piece – is stuck in the middle, unsure it will ever be given the life it knows it deserves.

And when the world wins, the artist looks at his finished works and hangs his head down in shame.

I’m just barely getting by. My work is just barely good enough,my spirits barely high enough.

(I remember the way she always said she would try to fix me, and now she’s gone.)

This city was my dream because she showed me the freedom that it brought to her. It feels so strange that now I am here and she is gone, and the worst of all is that this was her choice, just like it was his so long ago. I get by each and every day just barely, and with these fucking tears streaming down my face.

I look at my life now, and I still can’t believe I am here, in Chicago, attending one of the “best” universities in the nation and actually passing my classes. Sure, my grades may not be as good as they were in high school, but I haven’t completely flunked out yet. Sadly though, I don’t feel like I always thought I would. College isn’t what I expected it to be. This has helped me to stop expecting things.

Most of the people here make me want to give up on life, or on myself.

I’m not sure which is worse.

Do you ever feel as if you’re losing more and more parts of yourself to others? Like your roommate, who comes here with her own attitude and rules and suddenly makes you feel like the shittiest person on earth. When your every movement and your every word bothers someone, how do you get the courage to keep on moving and talking?

How can you possibly develop any self-worth (and maintain it) when someone around you is so constantly keeping you down, without even knowing it?

How do you tell someone so hurtful that you’re not their fucking maid or bitch?

"It’s not your fault, darling; it’s just the way that you are."

It’s funny the way you’re always so quick with the explanations. I wasn’t even gone and you were already thinking of reasons to blame me for leaving. It never works that way, but a pretty boy like you will never know it. You make everything seem effortless and simple, but I’ve heard the way you cry yourself at night, after a bottle or two of vodka, laying down on the floor with that childhood blanket of yours and that old soundtrack – the one that always hurt the most.

we’re the damned generation.

there are no phrases words or ideas left for us to create, invent or string together beautifully like you.

you, who never even had to try to create and touch the world with your words and your phrases that made us all feel so happy and comforted, yet so sad and alone.

you, who drank yourself to death but did it willingly, saying "there really is no other way to get by sometimes, please understand." and i did, — and though they cry bitterly over the life you lived and the decisions you made — i still do.

I was pretty happy the whole day, even though I am stressed beyond belief and unbelievably swamped with work. Overall though, things have been getting better. I'm feeling happier, and I'm finally forgiving myself and letting myself accept certain things and just....beginning to get over them.

So what if I wasn't good enough? My life is my own, and if I wasn't good enough for him...well, someday I will be good enough for someone and if not, then oh well. It just feels good that these sad thoughts are losing more and more control of my life. It's about time.

I tend to live every day by trying to push any thoughts or feelings that bring me pain away, but now and then I sort of stop in my tracks and remember something that causes pain to overwhelm me...but it never lasts long.

I do everything in my power not to let it go on for very long. I know with time, things will hurt less....as details begin to fade and I start to feel as if everything was just a dream, not a memory. Until then, I'm trying my best to keep my head up and keep myself composed.

Yesterday morning was absolutely horrible and depressing but the rest of the day was just amazing and unbelievable. Today, I walked him to the stairs and returned to the room and cried for a short while, but, my crying was rudely interrupted by my stomach deciding to turn itself over

I threw up for a bit (I seriously need to stop with the acetaminophen) then tried to resume my crying (I really did feel sad) but couldn't, so I did the next best thing: slept. (Thanks, probably, to all of the acetaminophen that was in my system...yet again, another bittersweet thing.)

A bittersweet day.

Honestly, as much as I loved being in his arms and walking from the bus stop with my head on his shoulder and lying on the couch with him for hours just whispering and sleeping and laughing…nothing can make up for the fact that today, I lost something dear to me.

His presence made this loss bearable, but what about tomorrow, and the day after that….and the day after that? I can only call him crying about this so many times before I finally just feel ridiculous.

I don’t know how to deal with this or anything.

Does the absence of God really bring me comfort, like she suggests? Maybe. I guess sometimes it feels good to be alone, although terrible, also. It's hard to explain. When you believe God’s there, it's hard when you don’t feel Him there. I don't know what I believe anymore. I swear, though, I am not an angry or bitter girl ( I know, I know I've got some of you fooled.)

Okay, so the days have been stressful, and bittersweet (honestly, more bitter than sweet, but sometimes there is just the perfect combination, the kind that really fits the word.)

This isn't about trying and then turning away. Who knows what the fuck this is about? All I want to do is watch all of them, their movements, their smiles, the way they brush their flowing hair from their eyes. I don't envy them, anymore, no. I don't lust after them, either. I don’t even pity them like I used to, long ago. What I feel is far worse than all of that, but also far better: indifference.

No, it's not that these people are incapable of awakening strong emotions in me. It's just that I've stopped giving a damn.

I need to stop feeling so misunderstood. At least, I need to stop feeling like this somehow makes me different from everybody else. Really, what I need to do is stop pretending I’m special when I’m really not. I have always found comfort in this, but I’m only kidding myself.

Whenever I felt socially awkward and whenever people showed no interest in becoming my friend….I would blame it on my ‘weirdness,’ – on this belief that I’m simply strange and misunderstood.

But I’m not. I’m really just another typical, everyday person.

I really have nothing beautiful to say or offer anybody.

This is the kind of thing that happens all the time, but everyone always acts surprised. It’s the kind of thing that hurts and breaks someone the most, but everyone always appears happy and wholesome. I’ve decided maybe it’s time I let go of this place and move on, never look back. It’s not that their composure frightens me, but rather that it brings out the broken parts of me and makes them appear so much worse.

It’s obvious we’ve both changed, and I will not force you to leave this place if it feels like home, but I’m gone.

Every phrase of adoration that whispers to me is something I (and probably a million other girls on this day alone) have heard before. All her best lines are borrowed, stolen, replicated from the romance novels she read and the drama movies she watched alone in bed, clutching her favorite stuffed bear while she closed her eyes, hoping and wishing for some great, idealistic love to come her way.

And when she needed me the most, I was there – someone needing love and friendship, who could relate so well to another lonely, young girl in this enormous city and world.

Once, it was easier to be afraid. It was easier to sit here and write my life and thoughts away, crying, shaking, smiling nervously, whatever. It was easier to doubt or feel hurt and let myself really feel it, and express it. This numbness and growing apathy is terrifying. The worst thing of all is, I don’t really know how to stop it.

It’s funny, I always needed explanations before. I always needed answers, always tried to reduce situations into black and white. Now, it hurts too much. Even if I could, I don’t know if I would want to.

I try to stay positive, I really do. I think I was doing a pretty good job until these few moments I've had alone, where everything seems almost unbearable and I start to slip into this sort of daze. I have so much reading to do and presentations to be planning for that I shouldn't even have a second to breathe or think about these things, but somehow they just manage to slip into my thoughts.

That’s the way these kinds of things have always been. They like to shove their way into your head when you least expect it.

College? Hm. It’s sort of like being awake, but not being able to open your eyes. It’s a place everyone tells you that you need to be, but you feel you don’t belong. It should have been salvation but it’s not.

Yes, these are your peers. Yes, they are the future. You live among them and you study among them and you ride that bus home in silence, surrounded by them and their pretentious conversations – their arrogant laughs, that smug look on their face that never goes away – and all you can think about is getting home and throwing up.

I would walk miles in the snow for you. I would take your bag off your shoulders and throw it upon mine – if only you would let me. Few things have ever felt this right, and it's because of that reason (but not that reason alone, no) that I'm here again, two years later, letting your presence haunt my writing, my desires and my thoughts.

It's never easy to let go of something that feels so absolutely passionate and right, like this realization that my love for you isn't tentative, but rather, a fact – and a truth, the simplest kind.

This promise, to one day make life better for you, is the only one that matters now. You don’t know it. No one does. And who can blame you, who can blame them? If you knew, you’d be offended and would walk away. If they knew, they’d do everything in their power to stop me.

The main reason this secret is mine and mine alone is this fear (this fucking consuming, intoxicating fear) of failure – that I don’t have what it takes, that I won’t have the power, that I won’t be good enough?

But tell me, darling, who is?

What’s on my my mind? Why do you keep asking me, when I already know you don’t really want to know? These fucking consuming thoughts of moments I’d rather forget.

Like the first time you turned to me and said "anything goes." (I think that’s when I knew you and I were definitely through.)

Except I’m that girl who never really knows anything. I have no idea of what has been going on lately. I need you to come over, hold me, explain, but none of that will happen.

"You’re lost girl, in this sea of instability and false hope."

I am becoming even more and more cynical, which I didn't really think was possible. What can I say, though? I don't think I can really be blamed. It's much easier to blame it on everything that's happened in the past few months, or blame it on the fact that I talked to a friend recently who is great at pointing out each and every one of his flaws and his cynicism towards people and life.

It's strange. He is so honest about the terrible things he feels and thinks, that it allows me to be brutally honest with myself.

"We will be OK, d---"

It’s funny how easy it is to believe someone who really knows little to nothing about the little details of your life, yet seems to really understand the core of the type of person that you are. Maybe that’s why when he told me that I believed him so much. He is this person – looking at my life from the outside only.

It felt as if he said, "look, I don’t know the details but I understand the kind of person that you are and I’m telling you, everything is going to be OK."

I sort of feel like a spectator in all of this. I play the part, I laugh at the appropriate time and nod when everyone else does. The only time I ever fail is when it comes to crying because goddamn it, I will not let myself cry, and if somehow I do, it sure as hell isn't going to be in public.

So I come home and hate myself for all the things I was burning to say but didn't. Or rather, couldn't. I'm not even sure when that change took place. All I know is I’m stuck here.

Yesterday was a lovely 46 degrees for most of the day and suddenly...it’s back to 1 degree, ONE! And it "feels like -18 degrees." You've got to be kidding me. After I checked the weather all I could think was, "Hmmm....maybe I'll just go back to bed” Today is going to be a long day.

It seems there are more and more “long days” now. This is good in some ways, but not so good in others. They keep me busy enough to not focus on the negative, but I feel like I’m missing out on some parts of life.

What she needs is more, much more, than I can (and am willing) to give her This was never about seeing how far we could go, so why do I start crying at the mere thought of doing this, then? I hug her with one arm and push her away with the other. I don’t even remember the way her lips felt against mine when all she does is talk about how wonderful those days were.

I'm not sorry that things have not gotten very far, and I don’t feel I should be.

(I'm not sorry there’s nothing to save .)